Un-Eddspected Fishing Trip
by Jackmir
Summary: A few years after the events of the show, all the Peach Creek Kids have settled into high school life - unfortunately the Kankers never rest. What happens when Edd finds himself all alone in Kanker clutches? Story concept by Barbacar! More chapters to come
1. Chapter 1

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As the last period ended and the bell rang through tiled hallways, a colorful flood of high schoolers came pouring out of classrooms in every direction. Excited chatter welled up with the student monsoon until Edd could barely hear himself think.

The sixteen year-old hung back in the doorway of Ms. Egbert's biology classroom waiting for the flood to abate a little bit. Though he had gained a respectable bit of height since the start of high school, Edd still had a very slim frame and experience had proved time and again that stepping into the Friday afternoon flood tended to leave him dazed, bruised, and washed up somewhere he never intended to be. Ms. Egbert sat at her desk smiling in quiet amusement at the teenager's plight.

Like most of his teachers at Peach Creek High, Linda Egbert was very fond of Eddward Vincent. He was soft-spoken, but very clear in all his class contributions, respectful to both his teachers and peers and – although Linda would _never_ admit it – possessed of all the sweet charm of a prim baby rabbit.

Edd had very soft, approachable features. His eyes were rather large and an unusually clear shade of light aqua. His shaggy black hair hung in bangs across his forehead in spite of that floppy beanie he was always shoving his errant locks into. His nose was a cute little upturned button that almost begged to be poked above a small mouth that was usually quirked into the barest suggestion of a smile.

He bounced on the balls of his feet, anxiously watching for an ebb in the rush of students flooding past the biology door, a stack of textbooks clutched tight to his chest. He jerked back from the doorway and raised his books to cover his face like a shield as another teenager suddenly breached the mass of bodies in the hallway, leaping like a salmon to land in the classroom.

Miss Egbert pinched the bridge of her nose and stifled a groan. The fish metaphor was all too appropriate for this particular junior as he lay on his belly on the tiled floor, flopping and gasping for breath. Edd's blue eyes appeared over the edge of his academic shield.

"Oh hello, Ed," he said, sounding suspiciously relieved, Ms. Egbert thought.

"No time, Double-D!" the flopping boy wailed.

Before either Ms. Egbert or Edd could ask what he meant, Ed bounded to his feet in one smooth, athletic movement that many professional ballet dancers would envy. Edd was tall enough – about average for his age anyway – but Ed towered at just a few inches under 7 feet tall; Ms. Egbert's favorite student didn't even come up to his friend's shoulder.

His formidable height was compounded with a broad frame well-muscled by three years of all-season athletic activities. Half of the trophies in the display case outside the auditorium had Ed's name on them. If it not for his friendly, somewhat goofy demeanor, Ed

"Ed, what in heaven's name are you –?" Edd started to ask.

"KANKERS, DOUBLE-D!"

Edd yelped and frantically clutched his books even closer as his mountain of a best friend suddenly grabbed him around the waist, hoisted him like a battering ram above his head, and charged out into the hallway. Ms. Egbert's jaw dropped nearly to her chest. She scurried to the open door and scanned the crowded hallway, but there was no trace of either of them. She stared down the hallway for a moment, shrugged, and then closed the door.

Alarming as his affection was, at the very least all the staff agreed that the football player was legitimately best friends with the soft-spoken boy. No harm would come to her favorite while they were together, Ms. Egbert thought as she packed up her papers for the day. If she had any inkling of how wrong she was, she might have run after them.

"Ed, will you please calm yourself!" Edd yelled at his friend. He ducked and squealed as his friend suddenly turned left and bolted through another doorway. The door jamb missed taking Edd's head off by bare millimeters.

Edd gave up trying to calm Ed down. When he got like this it was like trying to stop a raging bull with a wet paper plate; it wasn't going to happen. He tucked his knees to his chest and squeezed his eyes shut. All he could do was ride it out, so to speak, and hope that his cranium was still firmly attached to his spine whenever Ed stopped.

They whizzed past the cafeteria in a blur. Ed rounded another corner, smoke practically belching from his heels. Edd dared to peek through slitted lids. Up ahead of them was a twin set of bright red doors. Edd's heart leaped into his throat.

"Edward Hill, absolutely not!" Edd squawked, turning stiff with indignation. "That's a _fire_ door, Ed! The alarm will sound! Students are expressly forbidden from using that door –"

An ear-piercing wail rang down the hall as the two boys exploded through the emergency door. Bystanders could never be sure later if the siren came from the door's alarm system or from the cringing teenage boy held aloft by the star quarterback. The bright afternoon sunlight nearly blinded both of them for a moment, which had little effect on Ed's momentum.

"-except in cases of emergency." Edd finished.

"But Double-D, this IS an emergency!" Ed cried as he cut across the deserted back field of the school campus and curved his aim towards the woods bordering the property. "Kankers are coming!"

"I fail to see-EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Edd's voice rose into a shriek as he happened to catch movement just to the left in his peripheral vision. "Faster, Ed! RUN!"

The back field was not nearly as empty as Edd had initially supposed. Two cackling girls were charging at them from the side, running nearly as fast as Ed himself. The smaller of the two had long blonde hair that streamed behind her as she ran – were she herself not so terrifying, the sight would have been quite pretty. She tailed closely behind her older sister, whose curly red hair obscured so much of her vision it was a mystery how she could even see where she was going at all.

Edd tried to shrink into a smaller ball. The Kanker sisters were bar-none the biggest tormenters he and his two best friends had ever had to deal with. They had pursued the boys ruthlessly all the way through middle school. High school was supposed to be a fresh start for all of them; that had lasted until the second Friday of freshman year when the girls had all of a sudden pounced on the boys as the last bell rang.

Ed let out a bone-chilling screech that made Edd release his precious books and clap his hands over his ears. Birds flying overhead checked themselves, and even the two girls behind them slowed down their approach for a moment. Ed put on an extra burst of speed, the trees drawing so close he could practically taste them.

He had been working on his Super Ultra Death Screech of Monster Killing for several weeks now in preparation of just such an emergency. His parents had hired contractors to soundproof his basement bedroom after the third day. They had had to double-layer it after the sixth day. With one last push, he leaped forward and breached the tree line.

Edd's eyes widened in fear. "Ed! Watch out for that – OOOOF!"

Too late to move out of the way or warn his friend, Edd caught a thick tree branch to the gut. Instinctively, he latched on to it as the force ripped him out of his friend's hands. Ed disappeared into the woods, speed unchecked, his hands still held high above his head. Seconds later, the Kanker sisters flew by in a mass of hair beneath the cringing boy in the tree.

Edd was not particularly religious, but he offered a small prayer of gratitude as they sped on after his friend without even glancing up at him. Quiet settled back in to the outer scrim of woods as the three teenagers delved deeper into the forest. Unfortunately, this left the slim boy in the tree in a rough predicament; he was quite afraid of heights and he was at least eight or nine feet up in the air.

He glanced at the ground and immediately wished he hadn't. Waves of dizziness washed over him and he clamped onto the branch like an opossum on steroids. He squeezed his eyes shut and mentally recited the elements on the periodic table until his heartbeat slowed to a rate that was almost reasonable.

"Calm down, Eddward," he said out loud. "Calm. Right then," he quickly calculated his own height against the height of the branch he was considering spending the rest of his life sitting on. He was a decent five and a half feet tall, so if the branch was indeed eight or nine feet, then…he gulped and slowly lowered his body down until his feet were dangling above the ground. Best case scenario, he would only fall two and a half feet, worst case scenario: three and a half.

Both completely harmless heights so long as he softened his knees. He willed himself to let go of the branch. His grip tightened instead. This was completely irrational, he argued with himself. This was hardly as scary as dealing with Kankers or poking bears or dirt. Yet he could not convince himself to let go.

There was an affectionate scoff from somewhere behind him, but Edd dared not open his eyes nor twist around to look.

"Hang on, kid, I got you."

To Edd's mortification, for the second time that day, someone put their hands around his waist. His mysterious benefactor actually lifted him up a few inches to illustrate their strength. "See? I got you. Let go of the damn branch already."

With a little whimper, Edd complied. He felt himself being lowered down as gently as a ball of cotton on the wind. When he had composed himself enough to actually talk, he turned around to thank his helper.

His words died in his throat. One amused eye glinted at him. The other was hidden behind a swoop of sapphire hair. Edd was alone in the woods with Marie Kanker and she still had her hands around his waist.


	2. Chapter 2

Time slowed to a halt as Edd took in the situation. Marie fluttered her eyelashes at him, her teeth glinting in what could have been either a smile or a snarl. With this particular girl, both were equally plausible.

"Hey there, Oven Mitt," she purred, running the tip of her tongue around her lips. Her hands tightened around his waist. Her face was close enough to Edd's for him to see the light shimmer of glitter dusted on her eyelashes.

Edd turned bright pink and stiffened up like a board. He sucked in his breath with an audible squeak and tried to sort of bounce backwards away from her. Amazingly, Marie just smirked and released him. Edd took advantage of her unusual mercy and skittered back another few yards until his back thumped solidly against a tree trunk. He sized her up from that relatively safe distance.

Objectively speaking, Marie Kanker was actually a fairly good-looking girl. She had allowed her pixie cut to grow out since middle school and it draped in a blue waterfall down her back. Midway through freshman year she had suddenly unfolded into a punk rocker. A black sleeveless denim jacket hugged her lean frame. On one wrist dangled a black leather bracelet dotted with round silver studs; the school board had firmly banned any clothing or accessories decorated with spikes citing safety issues. Most people were genuinely surprised that Marie gave in without a fight on that one.

The tame round studs did little to soothe poor Edd's nerves however. Marie stood perfectly at ease about three yards away, one hip cocked slightly. He toyed briefly with the idea of making a break for it off the path, but dismissed the idea. Even though she was wearing clunky black combat boots, there was no doubt at all in the young academic's mind that Marie could still run him down in a heartbeat.

Her entire body was ropy with well-used lean muscle. Just how she got into such formidable physical condition was a mystery Edd did not particularly care to solve. Simply knowing there was no escaping her was painful enough knowledge on its own, in his humble opinion.

Completely at ease under his terrified gaze, the punk girl fished around in one of her jacket pockets and came out with a cigar. She popped open a switchblade with her other hand, magically pulling it from somewhere out of Edd's sight, sliced off one end of the roll, and put the knife back with a liquid flourish. She jammed one end of the cigar in her mouth and got busy lighting the other one.

She took a few puffs.

"Aww, I helped you out and you aren't even gonna say 'thank you?'" Marie pouted, though her eyes glittered with enjoyment. "And here I thought you were some kinda gentleman."

"Thank you, Marie," Edd said stiffly. The tree was pressing quite hard into his back.

"Don't mention it, Sweet Stuff," she cooed. She wiggled her hips playfully at him, prompting a mortified squeak.

"So," she continued, "Here's what I'm thinkin'; it's a beautiful day outside, I got nothing better to do but homework and," she snorted, "that can wait til I feel like doing it. So I'm gonna go fishing."

Edd cringed away from the unmoving Bluette. Incredibly she still hadn't tried to grab him.

"T-that sounds lovely, Marie," he stammered. His eyes darted around the clearing, searching for a way out. "But, I wouldn't want to keep you from such a pleasant endeavor, so I'll just," he edged a few inches to the left, "I'll just be on my way."

"Hold it right there," Marie commanded. Edd's joints locked up where he was, one sneakered foot half-lifted off the ground.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" she asked coyly. She held up a blocky bundle. Edd's eyes widened and his heart all but stopped.

"My textbooks!"

Marie had neatly stacked and bound them together with a rough length of old rope. She had scribbled a wide pair of eyes and a pointy nose on the foremost book. Where the mouth should be, she had slapped a piece of duct tape. She dangled the books mockingly.

"Marie! That's school property!"

"Yup." She tucked the books under her jacket. "And in twenty minutes, they're gonna be lake bottom property." She turned and started walking back out of the woods, leaving Edd thunderstruck behind her.

Edd watched her for all of three seconds before he realized his feet were pounding down the path after her.

"Marie! Wait!" he wailed. His fists reflexively scrunched up into little balls. A stream of horrors flashed through his mind. Marie cackling as she dropped his books into the cold, greasy waters of Orange Lake. The pages swelling up with water and ultimately disintegrating, the spines coming apart. His teachers' faces as he explained how he had allowed such a travesty to occur in the first place; the disappointment and contempt even in his mind's eye was more than the poor boy could bear.

Marie heard him crashing through the fallen leaves behind her, grinned to herself, and kept on going. She didn't turn around once as a stream of pleas started up behind her. She pictured those big blue eyes going shiny, that cute little rosebud mouth quivering the longer she kept the books; her grin stretched by a few molars. This was going to be way more fun than that stupid science homework.

He followed behind her, begging for her to be reasonable, all the way across the field, around the school, and up to the driver's side door of the beat-up red pickup truck she slid into. As he slammed the door shut and turned the key in the ignition, she finally spared him a glance.

"Look, Sweet Thing, I'm going fishing now. Passenger door's unlocked. If you really wanna keep your books from getting dunked, come along and give me something more entertaining."

Edd stiffened. A bead of nervous sweat tickled down his forehead. Even though he had long since grown past the "tattle-tale" stage of his life, he couldn't help but glance longingly at the school behind him. Most of the teachers were gone by now, though. Those that were left would either be occupied with extra-curricular activities or too tired from dealing with high schoolers to care about a little harmless drama in the parking lot.

Marie shrugged. "Suit yourself."

There was a rusty clunk as she shifted the gears out of park. Edd squealed and bolted around to the other side. The door was open and he was in the passenger seat before he could adequately process the situation. Marie gave him a dazzling smile.

"Buckle up, Oven Mitt. I don't wanna get a ticket," she commanded sweetly.

Numbly. Edd obeyed. She hit the gas and peeled out of the parking lot at a frankly unsafe speed. Edd flattened himself as much as he could into the musty-smelling passenger seat. Marie looked like Christmas had come early.

This was _not_ how he had planned to spend his afternoon.


	3. Chapter 3

The drive to the lake was mercifully quiet for the most part; Edd kept himself pressed as far up against the passenger side door as he could while Marie only opened her mouth to take another puff on her cigar. Every now and then, the slim boy stole a longing glance at his captive textbooks tucked securely between the punker's hip and driver side door. The interior of the truck was so thick with dust and smoke that Edd was unsure if Marie could see through the windshield at all, compounding his rising anxiety attack.

What trees he could make out through the smudgy window flicked by at an impressive pace. The speed limit on the road through Peach Creek up to the lake was only 35 miles per hour, but with the speedometer buried under a thick layer of brownish crust, there was no way to be certain how fast they were actually going.

Marie, of course, shared none of his worries. She rolled down her window as they passed the drive to the cul-de-sac, shifted on her hip in his direction, and flopped her leg out the window. Edd choked on a reflexive safety lecture; adding more fuel to her fire was the least helpful course of action, experience had proved long ago. She steered with four fingers of one hand while she drummed her cigar out the window with the other.

She must have invested in some incredible hair product, Edd noted; despite the strong wind coming through the open window, her bangs didn't shift at all. Double Dee flinched back as she reached in his direction, then sighed in relief as she merely turned the dial on her dust choked radio panel. His relief was short lived as an ear-splitting scream rattled the car. His own cry was lost under it.

Marie ignored him; she was occupied jerking her head up and down in some semblance of rhythm. Now that he was over his initial startle, Edd acknowledged that somewhere under the frankly alarming vocals and heavy, crashing instruments, there was indeed a tempo of some sort pumping through the speakers. Puffs of dust punctuated every bass line, and the anxious teenager questioned whether the truck would survive another song.

"It's called Screamo," Marie explained abruptly.

"I can see why," Edd replied with a grimace.

Their brief conversation was brought to a literal screeching halt as the blue-haired punk swung the steering wheel in a sudden hard right, flattening Edd against his door and sending the truck up on a two-wheel turn. Marie continued to head bang to her music, unfazed while her hapless companion struggled to breathe past the heart that seemed to have leapt into his throat.

The two wheels crashed back to the pavement with a bone-rattling thump that sent the poor teenaged boy hurtling up in his seat, only to be snapped back down by his frayed seatbelt. His eyes watered as his breath was forced out of his lungs.

"Marie," he wheezed, "please…"

His words were cut off as she took an equally hard left and the whole process repeated. By the time she screeched to a halt by the lake shore five minutes later, poor Edd was a quivering blob of nerves. Marie had to help him out of the car as his knees were shaking too much to independently support him. Fortunately the blue-nette had years of experience dragging the reluctant boy around, so she hauled him to the rickety rowboat tied at the docks with ease. She helped him into the boat where he sank in a heap onto one of the wooden seats. Marie deftly untied the boat from its mooring before following him.

She thumped down on the opposite side, tucked his poor books under her seat, grabbed the oars and began rowing. Edd practiced his breathing, just like his counselor had taught him: in through his nose, out through his mouth. In and out, slow and controlled.

Marie cocked an eyebrow at him as the dock grew tinier behind them. "You giving birth over there, or what?"

Edd shook his head, the rhythm of his breath ticking a steady beat. "Keeps me calm," he managed in between exhales.

The punk girl let the oars rest for a moment. Her eyes narrowed and her brows knitted together; if Edd didn't know better, he'd swear she almost looked concerned. She bit her lower lip and chewed on it for a moment. Her blue eyes seemed to drill through her skinny classmate. Under her stare his breaths became a little more ragged.

"Chill, dude," she said at last, her eyes softening a bit.

Edd closed his eyes and pictured his calm place. In his mind's eye he poured a thick layer of sand. One by one he drew slow lines through the loose grains until he felt the pressure in his chest ease off a bit. In and out. Calm and grounded.

When he felt in control of himself again he opened his eyes. Marie's blue irises loomed a mere inch from his.

"Good _Lord_!" He pin wheeled backwards off the seat and his rump landed with a solid smack on the bottom of the boat.

Marie's head popped over the seat. "Dude! You alright?"

It was a little hard to hear himself over the sound of his heart thundering in his ears, but he managed to answer in the affirmative. The blue-nette scrutinized his face closely before offering her hand to him. After a moment he took it. She heaved him effortlessly back into his seat and retreated back into her own.

"Do I really freak you out that much, Oven Mitt?" she asked softly.

Edd opened his mouth to refute her claim, his ingrained politeness insisting that he lie to the distressed female. "Your antics do not help, Marie." _What?_

She flinched back like he had smacked her. Edd shook his head frantically. "My sincere apologies! I did not mean that quite as harshly as that sounded…" he started to explain.

"It's fine." She cut him off short. "I guess, no I _know_ I already knew that." She shrugged, and sneered as though it didn't bother her. "Dunno. Guess maybe I thought you'da loosened up a little by now." She grabbed the oars and started rowing again resolutely looking anywhere but at Double-D.

Edd slumped down in his seat, guilt rumbling somewhere deep in his gut. On some level it was unfair; Marie Kanker had spent the vast majority of their childhood tormenting him and his two best friends right along with her sisters. Her constant unwanted affection had in fact finally led his parents to sit down with him and explain the concept of consent after they came home to find their traumatized son coated head to toe in cherry lipstick a few years back.

There was no justification for him to feel any guilt at her remorse; unfortunately he was hardwired with concern for others that bordered on self-neglect. With effort, he swallowed back his bubbling apologies.

Marie in the meantime, fished another cigar somewhere out of her evidently bottomless pockets. She skillfully popped a matchhead against her thumbnail and brought the bright ember of her cancer log to life. She puffed greedily on the end, held her breath, and released a blue plume of smoke through her nostrils.

Edd squirmed uncomfortably in his seat. Marie fixed him with a level gaze as she took a long drag on her cigar. The black-haired boy's face grew red with effort, gripping his wooden seat as though he feared he might fly away from it. The punk girl released a new smoke cloud slowly. Something seemed to finally snap in her crush.

"That is horrifically unhealthy for your lungs, Marie!"

Both her eyebrows shot to her hairline. "What was that, sweet thing?"

Edd tried to stop himself, he really did – but once his lectures started picking up even a little bit of steam there was really no stalling them out again.

He straightened up subconsciously and shook his finger at her. "Smoking leads to a laundry list of long-term health complaints including, but not limited to: several forms of cancer including lung cancer, dental staining, brittleness, and loss. Weight fluctuation, hair thinning, premature aging…."

Marie took it in without batting an eye. "So?"

"…not to mention the _legalities_ involved with your age! Federal law states that all US states must have a minimum line of age 18 before tobacco products can be sold, and I know for a fact that you are _well_ under the legal age to…"

The punk girl's face scrunched up, her lit cigar resting between two fingers as the young academic prattled on, his fear evidently forgotten. "I'll be seventeen next month, sweet cheeks. That's not 'well' under the limit far as I'm concerned," she muttered.

"The law does not operate on technicalities when it comes to substance sales to minors! And furthermore…"

"Can it, sweetheart," Marie rolled her eyes and took another drag. "Haven't you ever heard the saying 'live fast, die young'?"

The boy sputtered, his face cycling between various hues of red and white. The punk girl laughed.

"Look, Oven Mitt," she said at last, gesturing at him with her cigar. "It's cute an' all that you're so worried about my health but it's not somethin' I'm too worried about."

Edd took a few measured breaths and managed to compose himself at least a little. "You might not be worried about it now, but I assure you, Marie; the ramifications of a smoking habit – particularly one started in one's teens! – can be far reaching and lead to complications far down the line."

"Not everyone looks that far down the line, sweet stuff," Marie responded bluntly.

The black-haired boy frowned. "What, pray is that supposed to mean?"

She ignored him. "Besides," she added brightening, "How'm I supposed to go fishing without a cigar?"

Edd stuttered again. "I confess I cannot quite track your logic there," he admitted. "But now that you have called attention to it…" He cast his gaze over the rowboat. Other than the two teenagers, his books, and an oddly wrapped bundle by Marie's feet, there was nothing in the boat. Certainly nothing as bulky as fishing equipment at least.

"How exactly are you planning on setting your fishing plans into effect without any equipment?"

"Equipment?"

"You know," he prompted. "Rods, hooks, bait, tackle and the like?"

Marie laughed again, her teeth flashing. "See that's fancy-pants fishing. Ya don't need any of that stuff." She clamped the cigar between her teeth and rummaged for the wrapped bundle. "All you need," she continued, her voice slightly muffled, "Is a good cigar and one of _these."_

"I still don't quite understand what you – OH MY _GOD!"_

If the young academic had had a hair more confidence in his swimming abilities, he would have dived into the murky lake water right then and there, germs be confounded, and hightailed it back to the docks. The blue-haired punk girl was holding a red paper-wrapped stick with a long fuse sticking off one end. A stick that looked suspiciously like dynamite. And oh dear lord, the poor boy's heart wedged itself into his throat again; she was currently trying to light it with the end of her cigar.

Edd had once, in the safety of the school's library, perused an article on behavioral psychology and extreme duress. The scientist who penned the article had put forth her theory that if danger is presented in extreme and overwhelming quantities all at once, it was possible for one's "fight or flight" reflex to be overloaded.

The teenager found himself agreeing with her theory; as soon as he fully grasped the situation Marie was getting them into, his brain shut down and he found himself frozen in his seat. He could not seem to remember how to move as the fuse sparked to light. He watched with a sort of horrified fascination as the blue-nette let the fuse burn closer and closer to the stick.

All at once, she cocked her arm back and lobbed the explosive as far over the water as she could. Time seemed to slow down as Edd followed the arc of the spinning stick. For a moment everything seemed hyper-clear; he noted the grains of wood in the boat, the dirty gemstone gleam of the lake, the sound of his breath rasping in his throat. Then the fuse ran out.

The sound was indescribable. A geyser of water shot some 20 feet up in the air. Edd found himself clutching the edges of the little boat as miniature waves rocked it to and fro. Marie sat back and took another drag, a satisfied smirk playing about her lips at his reaction. And then came the fallout.

For one crazy, single moment, Edd thought it was raining as water poured down in a thousand droplets on them. And then the trout came down with it and smacked him in the face. A high-pitched whine tore its way out of his throat as he smacked the cold, slimy creature away. He scrubbed at his face frantically with his hands. Freshwater fish could carry a myriad of bacteria and filth on their scales and now it was on his FACE.

Marie rocked back in her seat, howling with laughter. Her biker boots drummed the bottom of the boat as she kicked with glee. "Holy shit dude," she gasped tears streaming down her cheeks, "that was _hilarious_. You should see your face right now!"

Edd wheezed, his nerves too frayed to allow for any coherent response. His clean, fitted gray vest was soaked with contaminated water, his precious black ski hat sodden and dragging down past his ears with the water weight. His sneakers of course would have to be discarded; there was very little he could do to combat the mildew he knew would set in to the canvas slip-ons other than toss them through the washer and dryer, which his parents would never allow. He could already smell the fetid water clinging to his skin.

At least a dozen fish fell down from the blast. Three of them lay in the bottom of the boat. The silvery bodies of the others floated like soap bubbles on the surface of the rippling water. Marie glanced at her now sodden cigar butt, shrugged, and tossed it into the water. She grabbed the oars and started rowing out to where the thickest layer of floating fish bobbed about.

Barehanded she scooped them up one by one and flipped them into the bottom of the boat. Edd crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. This day for him could not possibly get any worse. Marie paused in her enthusiastic harvesting and shot him a sharp glance.

"What are you doing? Start scoopin', Oven Mitt!"

"No." Edd said, surprising himself as much as her.

"No? The hell do you mean 'no'?"

"No usually indicates refusal, Marie," Edd said coldly. He could not quite put his finger on what was happening to him at that moment; a most peculiar feeling of heat and tension was bubbling up in his chest. He had been irritated, exasperated, and downright angry with his friends before but this was something new. For the first time in his life, Eddward Vincent felt that he had finally had enough.

Marie let go of the fish she had just snagged and settled back in her seat. She steepled her fingers under her chin and regarded him with interest. The normally pale boy's face was flushed, his wet hair clinging in flat spikes to his forehead giving him a back-alley danger sort of look. This was new.

"Well," she said, "go on. Get it off your chest, sweet thing."

"Right," he said, straightening his hat as best he could. "Where to start? You stole my textbooks, potentially landing me in massive trouble with the school administration, you dragged me out against my will on a potentially lethal trip to a place I am uncomfortable with at _best_."

He took a breath, his shoulders trembling with cold and emotion. "You have repeatedly put us both in danger with your reckless driving, taking a boat that looks like it may very well sink at any moment," he pointed at the faded wood for emphasis. "And you have just thrown LITERAL dynamite into the water killing an obscene number of aquatic life forms and potentially disrupting the delicate ecosystem here, to say nothing of the laundry list of laws you are breaking."

Marie looked a bit taken aback. She opened her mouth to respond but Edd held up a hand, cutting her off. "I'm not done." The blue-haired girl's mouth snapped back shut.

"Not content to endanger your own health with your obnoxious, illegal smoking habit, you had the mind-blowing irresponsibility to light the dynamite _in your hand with your goddamn cigar_."

The punkette's jaw dropped, her eyes widening in shock. The soft-spoken, shy, polite object of her affection was visibly shaking with rage. His own eyes were as wild as a rabid dog's.

"If you really have so little regard for your own health and well-being, than I salute you and more the power to you for your ill-advised life choices, but do not," he leaned forward and got right in her face. "Do _not_ ever dare try to take me down with you." He slumped back in his seat panting with effort.

Marie looked almost shell-shocked. The silence in the boat was deafening. Somewhere across the lake, a duck quacked hesitantly.

"Wow," she said softly. She dug around in her pocket and fished out another cigar. To her own surprise, lighting it took several attempts because her hands were shaking. She took a few drags and felt a little calmer.

Edd would not meet her gaze; he hugged himself in his corner of the boat. Where on earth had that come from?

"I didn't know you had it in you, sweet thing," Marie said suddenly.

Edd shot her a surprised look. To his amazement, she was grinning at him. Beaming, really.

"Knew you had a spine in there somewhere. Alright, Oven Mitt," she said. "If ya want me to ease off that much, then I guess I can handle that."

Edd took a few measured breaths and managed to get himself comfortably back under control. "Forgive me if I remain a bit skeptical of your ability to not antagonize me, Marie."

Marie shrugged, unfazed. "Well ya know what they say: trust takes time."

Edd blinked. "That is….surprisingly mature of you, Marie."

She fluttered her eyelashes and offered him a dazzling smile. "Well, guess we all gotta grow up sometime."

Before Edd could think to respond, the whine of a bullhorn sizzled across the lake.

"This is the Grove County police! You are in direct violation of state fishing laws. Return to shore IMMEDIATELY!"

In the distance, a police car was parked by Marie's truck, blue lights flashing. A presumably angry police officer stood next to it, hands on his hips.

Marie shrugged. "Well, I guess til next time, sweetheart." She grabbed the oars and to Edd's relief, pointed them back towards the shore.

The officer in question turned out to be _very_ angry. Edd stood slightly behind the blue-nette as the policeman laid down a lecture that increased in both volume and facial redness the longer it went on.

"…and I'm afraid I'm going to have to take both of you down to the station."

Marie shrugged and mumbled "whatever," but poor Edd about had a heart attack.

"The station? Please, officer, isn't it possible that a stern warning might suffice?"

The officer leveled him with a searing glare. "You giving me lip, kid?"

Marie snorted and stepped forward. "Aight, officer. I'm giving it up." The policeman looked back at her. "Say again, kid?"

The blue-nette nodded. "Yeah. I was just having some fun. Didn't think it was gonna be that big a deal."

"And your boyfriend here?"

Marie snorted, rolling her eyes. "Puh-lease. Poindexter over there? Nah he's just some nerd that gave me some attitude at school. Just brought him out here to teach him a harmless little lesson about crossing the Kankers."

"Kanker?" The cop zeroed in on her. She had his full attention now. "Wait a minute. You Luella's little girl?"

Marie sneered. "Luella's my mother, but I'm _nobody's_ little girl, Mister."

The officer nodded, crossing his arms. "Figured you would say as much." He glanced back at Edd. "She telling the truth, son? You weren't out there causing trouble?"

"Well no, sir." He said hesitantly, "but I don't think Ms. Kanker really meant to cause any…"

"Good enough for me. Can you get yourself home, son?"

Edd did some quick mental calculating. It was no more than a 20 minute walk or so. "I think so, sir, but I really…"

"Then get yourself on home, boy and I highly recommend you stay there until school starts up tomorrow. Unless you want to press charges against Ms. Kanker?"

Edd held up his hands in dismay. "No, sir! Certainly not, it was a harmless prank and I'm sure she's learned her lesson."

Marie waved her cigar at him lazily. "Can it, nerd. I'll be fine."

"Stay where you are, Miss Kanker." The officer warned sternly as he turned to grab the notebook sitting on top of his car.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Edd whispered to her while the officer was scrawling down his notes. Marie smiled and winked.

"I'll see you in school by tomorrow. Get goin'."

As Edd hesitantly started down the road back to the cul-de-sac he stole one last glance back at the shoreline. Marie did not wave to him, but she took a long drag of her cigar, rolled the smoke around in her mouth for a moment, and blew a perfect little heart in his direction. Edd flushed and turned back to the road.

As soon as he got home, he slipped his shoes off by the outside bin and dropped them in. He plodded barefoot up to the bathroom. He peeled off his filthy clothes, discarded them in the laundry basket and took a very long, very hot shower. He tumbled straight into bed immediately after he finished drying off.

When he arrived at school the next day he found his locker jimmied open and a wrapped bundle at the bottom of it. When he unwrapped the bundle he found his textbooks safe and dry as well as a note penned in swooping letters, decorated with little hearts.

 _Til next time, Sweet Thing - Marie_


End file.
